I don't love you, but I always will
by dominoharvey
Summary: Natasha Romanoff may have been only 17, but she was one of the Red Room's top agents. She got the job done, and didn't need anyone to help her do it. Clint Barton was the best marksman Shield had seen, so naturally he was chosen to hunt down the agent from the Red Room and put her out of business. However things change when the marksman and the agent can't seem to kill each other.
1. Chapter 1

Natasha wiped the blood from her mouth and stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her face was stained red, a sharp contrast against her dark hair and pale skin. Cuts ran along the side of her face and neck, with a particularly nasty one at her temple. She sighed as she slowly removed her jacket, revealing more cuts and bruises. Her arms ached and her head throbbed but she had to clean herself up or she'd regret it later. She tore a piece of fabric from her jacket and dabbed at her temple. Natasha couldn't count the number of times she'd seen herself like this, battered and bruised and dripping blood on the carpet. It was a sight she'd grown used to. She no longer cried when the blood stained her clothes so bad she had to throw them out. Nor did she scream when her own face was suddenly twisted into the face from a nightmare. She bandaged her face as best she could and then surveyed the rest of the damage. The violence had been mostly aimed at her face, so her body was intact, for once. She stripped down to her underwear and threw the bloodied clothing into the washer. Once she was dressed again she rifled through her fridge, suddenly gripped by pangs of hunger. She tried to remember the last time she ate, but kept coming up blank. Her body could go days without any food. One of the many tricks they had beaten into her as a child.

She selected a frozen dinner from the freezer and popped it in the microwave. Leaning against the counter, she surveyed her apartment. It was a small space, not that she needed anything bigger. She was barely there long enough to mind. Not much had been changed since she'd moved in five years ago. There was a couch in the living room, a dusty old thing with flowers that she'd found at a second hand store. A side table sat next to it with a lamp on top. The bulb was bare, for the lamp shade had been ruined the first time someone had broken in. She'd spent two weeks trying to get the blood stains out before giving up. There was no TV, so the couch simply faced the window. It was the main reason Natasha had bought the place. The apartment building itself was at the edge of the city, and the window looked out onto the ocean surrounding it. She'd never been one for fairy tales or fantasies, but she could spend hours staring out that window. If she had the time.

The microwave beeped, signaling that her food was ready. Natasha reluctantly tore herself away from the view to follow the smell of chicken and mashed potatoes. She ate her food on the couch, for she'd never bothered to get a kitchen table. It was a rare occasion when she was actually able to sit and eat her dinner, or any meal for that matter. She winced at the first few bites, the muscles in her face screaming. She was probably going to open up a wound again. Wouldn't be the first time, nor the last. The dinner, though not fantastic, satisfied her growling stomach for the time being. She could have eaten more but she was on a strict diet. And they'd know if she cheated. She placed the dirty dishes in the sink and wandered into her room. She didn't even have a bed, just a futon pushed against the wall. She'd had to sleep on different beds during assignments and she could never get used to the softness of the mattress. The room itself had never felt like home to her. The only things in the room that really felt like hers were the records stacked in piles on the floor and the record player on the nightstand. She'd come across the antique in a store in London and had felt this urge to buy it. She'd been collecting records ever since. They were easy enough to hide in her suitcase from her superiors and they were the only things that made her feel somewhat normal. Weren't teenagers supposed to lose themselves in music when they felt like the walls were caving in? Except her walls did cave, and when they did they fell hard.

The sudden ringing of her cell phone interrupted her reverie. She frowned at the number, not recognizing it. Probably a disposable cell.

"Romanoff." she said, putting the phone to her ear.

"Miss Romanoff, your assignment in Bulgaria has been completed. Please return to base and await further instructions." The line went dead.

Natasha sighed and tucked the phone back into her pocket. Duty calls.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint eased his bow back, narrowing his eyes and focusing on the target. He let the arrow fly, and couldn't help but grin in satisfaction when it hit its mark. Practicing in the Shield training room wasn't exactly stimulating but it was a good way for him to let off some steam without having to kill anyone. He loaded another arrow while the target descended and another took its place. This one was further away and it moved from side to side. These ones always tripped up the new recruits. For Clint though, they just increased his boredom. After another couple hits he was seriously considering jumping off the helcarrier just to see how far he could fall before someone noticed. He was thinking logistics when Fury walked into the room. Clint immediately felt himself tense up, and he had to ask himself what he'd done to piss off the director lately. Fury's visits usually consisted of him yelling about professionalism and protocol and Clint trying to mentally picture what Fury would look like if he still had both eyes. This time however Fury was smiling, or rather as close as he could get to a smile. Must be a new mission then. Thank god.

"Barton" said Fury with a nod. Clint's suspicions were confirmed when he saw Fury pull out a folder. "We need you to go to Paris."

"Another Frenchman with a hard-on for world domination?" he asked sarcastically.

Fury blinked. "If you're going to be difficult I can always—"

"No no no, I'm in. Just trying to lighten the mood." He was desperate to do something, anything. If he had to explain to one more trainee how they had to hold a bow he would snap an arrow. Or a neck.

Fury sighed one of his famous sighs and handed Clint the folder. "We've been tracking the threat for some time now. It didn't appear to be an issue, but our sources tell us the person in question has just been assigned a rather dicey mission in Paris. And by dicey I mean 'take out the president and watch the chaos ensue' kind of mission."

Clint took the folder but didn't open it. "I take it then that there's a chance he'll actually be successful in the mission? Seems like a pretty hefty assignment for one guy." Taking out a president wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Usually it was the kind of thing that underground groups planned for months. "Is he from an organization we've heard of before?"

Fury's expression didn't change but there was something there that wasn't before. It almost looked like amusement. "Are you accepting the mission or not?"

Now it was Clint's turn to sigh. "Yes sir, I accept the mission. When do I leave?"

"You have one hour." Was all Fury said before turning around and leaving Clint alone.

Clint grabbed his bow and arrow and headed up to his room. Count on Fury to give away as little information as possible. Once in his room he stowed his weapon of choice in its case and took out his suitcase from underneath the bed. It was already packed of course, and he had two others in the closet. Made things a lot easier when you weren't wasting time trying to hunt down your favorite pair of boxers. He slipped the case inside the bag and left the room. As much as it was nice to relax after being in the field, Clint always felt happiest when he was completing a mission. Even when he was training or teaching other agents he got restless. He would start to think that he was expendable, that Shield didn't really need him. But when he was out on an assignment, when he was chasing down a mark or planning an attack, that was when he felt like he was achieving something. That was when he felt most like himself. He knew that that probably meant something awful about his personality and it was for that very reason that he had avoided seeing the Shield therapists. They'd have a field day on him.

Clint was so lost in his thoughts that it wasn't until he was on the plane to Paris that he realized he hadn't looked in the folder Fury had given him. He flipped it open, expecting to see a man in his late forties with a big bank account and a bad haircut. What he saw was a picture of a girl who looked too young to be an agent, let alone taking out Presidents. She appeared to be in her late teens, or at least that was his guess. Her birthdate wasn't listed and neither was her real name. What was listed was her codename—Black Widow—, her list of previous missions and her hit list. His eyes widened as he read the list of names. He always thought that he held the record for hits, but it seemed that he had been beaten.

By a teenage girl no less.

Clint shut the folder and put it on the pull-out table, but not before taking out the picture of his new target. If she hadn't looked so pissed off, she would be fairly attractive. For a kid. Clint was sure that he was more than a few years her senior. And he didn't make it a habit to be attracted to his marks. That being said, this was his first target from the Red Room and he knew that they trained their girls to do more than kill their targets. At least the poor bastards died happy. He set the picture on top of the folder and closed his eyes. This would probably be an interesting mission, but he figured he'd be back by the following evening. He could handle one teenage girl on a power trip.


End file.
